Welcome to the Diablo 4 Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Endgame Build Guide! This is a fan-favorite skill that returns to the franchise for Barbarians. While it naturally has a very small area of effect, we solve this by using Tempered Hammer of the Ancients Size and the Aspect of Ancestral Force (which, conveniently, can always be imprinted via the Codex of Power). These drastically increase the radius of the impact, allowing us to obliterate almost full screens of enemies.
To support Hammer of the Ancients, we take a lot of the standard tools for the endgame. Our main generator, Power Leap, is used to keep our mobility and Fury up, as well as strengthen our bonks with its inherent utility in spawning Earthquakes via the Aspect of Bul-Kathos. Combined with the Rumble Glyph and Tempered Earthquake Duration, these fissures quickly add up and grant us a ton of power.
To help keep things comfy, we also pick up three powerful shouts: Rallying Cry for Unstoppable, Fury generation and mobility, and Challenging Shout for a massive chunk of damage reduction when things get too dicey, and War Cry for a decent damage increase and Berserking status. Lastly, we have Wrath of the Berserker as an Ultimate to fall back on for some extra damage, Fury generation and buff extensions.
With all this at our disposal, nothing can withstand the pure power that Hammer of the Ancients can deliver. And with that... let's start smashing!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Barbarian playstyle, check out all of our Barbarian Guides.
Season 4 - Loot Reborn
In Season 4, the Season Theme revolves around helping out the Iron Wolves. Compared to past themes, this one does not offer any borrowed power as the entire game has been redesigned with new itemization and crafting options, increasing player power substantially across the board. Instead, you can gather reputation similar to the Vampire Bounty Board from Season 2 to unlock rewards that supercharge your leveling journey to 100 with extra items, crafting materials and eventually even a Resplendent Spark to craft an uber unique.
We recommend to follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 4 guide for more information.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
This is a full melee playstyle. We methodically play around a rotation that enables the majority of our hits to Overpower and cause massive damage. This means that close attention is sometimes required in order to play optimally.
- Lunging Strike is our Fury generator of choice; it is taken to utilize Earthstriker's Aspect for Overpower hits in the early game. Although this is dropped from the skill bar later on, it is still required to advance the skill tree and is useful for much of the early leveling process.
- Hammer of the Ancients is a heavy hitting Core skill with a moderately high Fury cost. It shines when combined with Enhanced Hammer of the Ancients to regain Fury, and Furious Hammer of the Ancients for even more deadly attacks at full resources. The Offensive Aspect of Ancestral Force transforms this skill into an omni-directional shockwave that blasts most of the room to pieces.
- Rallying Cry is the Shout that boosts our Movement Speed and Fury generation. More Movement Speed improves our ability to traverse every area in the game, and also allows us to easily position ourselves to nuke hordes of enemies fast and efficiently. On top of this, it grants us Unstoppable on use, allowing us to avoid and break any crowd control effects.
- Challenging Shout is one of our main defensive buffs that grants us a huge percentage of flat damage reduction. It also helps with grouping up enemies with its inherent Taunt ability.
- War Cry is an additional way to help us keep up our Berserking status, and also just serves as a free damage boost whenever it's up. Using three Shouts generally is just a very comfy playstyle and allows for fast and relaxing farming.
- Leap is essential to the core gameplay loop that this setup revolves around. Combining Giant Strides, Earthquake, Bul-Kathos, Rumble, and Tempered Earthquake Duration with this skill gives us a multitude of damage and defensive buffs, as well as a ton of mobility when played correctly.
- Wrath of the Berserker is a skill we fall back on when we need a big of extra damage and other buffs. It knocks back enemies, helps us cap our Fury, and serves as an additional source of Berserking and Unstoppable.
- The following generally describes our gamplay loop:
- Leap into battle to grant Berserking, generate Fury, and spawn Earthquakes from Bul-Kathos.
- Use Rallying Cry for a Fury boost if needed, and optionally Challenging Shout if there are strong Elites present. War Cry can be used whenever it is off cooldown for some extra damage.
- Smash away with Hammer of the Ancients. With Tempered Hammer of the Ancients Size, the shockwave will hit most of the screen and destroy everything in its wake.
- Mix in uses of Leap if Fury is ever low and to stack more Earthquakes. Because of Rumble and Tempered Earthquake Duration, more quakes = more damage. Since we prioritize keeping our Leap cooldown as low as possible, this skill should be used often, especially when travelling between encounters.
- Wrath of the Berserker is always a great skill to fall back on for extra damage and buff extensions. At the very least, we want to pop it right at the start of Boss fights to ensure we have the power and Fury spike it grants.
Arsenal System
The Arsenal System allows us to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, with each weapon granting different bonuses. We also have what is called the Technique Slot. With this, we can use any weapon of our choosing to always reap the benefit from, regardless of which weapon we have equipped.
The Two-Handed Mace is our main (and only) weapon of choice, since Hammer of the Ancients requires a Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon. It has a great secondary effect that increases our Critical Strike Damage multiplier, and since we are built to cap our Critical Strike Chance, we are benefitting from this essentially always.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe further allows us to capitalize on this by increased our damage to Vulnerable enemies. Unfortunately, its secondary effect does not apply here - the limitation of the Technique Slot is that it does not allow us to benefit from the second bonus that is normally gained from reaching rank 10 with any weapon expertise.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Arsenal System Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
In order to play this build effectively, attention is required in overcoming our Fury-spending issue, which can be a massive drawback early on. The use of Unbridled Rage makes this problem even more severe. Here's what we do to help it:
- Using Tactical Rallying Cry. This is one of our main sources of Fury regeneration and we make sure this is active during any major fight.
- Leap and Lunging Strike can both be used as Fury generators.
- Taking Prolific Fury multiplies our Fury Generation.
- Resource Cost Reduction on our Two-Handed Weapons drastically decreases our Fury comsunption.
- Resource Generation on our Rings. While damage stats are always more appealing, they mean nothing if we can't cast our skills. This should always be a priority stat when considering gear options.
- Vocalized Empowerment grants us 10 base Fury per second while we have at least one Shout active. Useful in the early and midgame.
- The Two-Handed Mace Expertise inherently gives us a chance to gain Fury on hit.
- On the Warbringer paragon board, we take nodes that grant us Fury on Kill.
- The Wrath glyph returns Fury on Critical Strikes.
Reductions to our Cooldowns are also important, but to a lesser extent. That said, without ways to mitigate their downtime, the build can definitely feel weaker, slower, and more clunky. We solve this by doing the following:
- Rolling Cooldown Reduction wherever we can get it. In our case, the Helm slot as well as the Amulet.
- Imprinting the Bold Chieftain's Aspect. It saves us up to 6 seconds on each of our Shouts under ideal circumstances, and really helps make the build feel smooth. Acquiring this should actively be one of our first priorities.
- Relentless Berserker's Aspect helps us keep our Berserking status from going on cooldown - if this ever falls off it is a large hit to our damage.
- Giant Strides is used to help keep Leap off cooldown.
- In general, being smart with our cooldowns and not using them where they aren't needed drastically improves our gameplay flow. This means not using Shouts when no enemies are around, saving Wrath of the Berserker for tougher fights, etc.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default, this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Note that there are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last two steps in the Paragon progression above for details. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Might
- Undaunted
- Ire
- Exploit
- Wrath
- Territorial
- Rumble
Level 21
- Might
- Ire
- Wrath
- Territorial
- Undaunted
- Exploit
- Rumble
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Progression & Variants
When you start diving into the Endgame, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. These are listed in priority order:
- Unlock the following Aspects from Dungeons:
- Ancestral Force in Sunken Ruins
- Relentless Berserker's in Hakan's Refuge
- Relentless Armsmaster in Calibel's Mine
- Voracious Rage in Hallowed Ossuary
- Vocalized Empowerment in Siroccos Caverns
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones
- Brawler's in Haunted Refuge
- Earthstriker's in Maugan's Works
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned
- Numbing Wrath in Heathen's Keep
- Wind Striker in Shivta Ruins
- Berserk Ripping in Mournfield
- Bul-Kathos in Light's Refuge
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Bold Chieftain's: Gamble Rings
- Replaces Voracious Rage.
- Giant Strides: Gamble Rings
- Replaces Vocalized Empowerment.
- Undying: Gamble Pants
- Replaces Disobedience.
- Earthquake: Gamble One-Handed Weapons
- Replaces Berserk Ripping.
- Limitless Rage: Gamble One-Handed Weapons
- Replaces Earthstriker's.
- Accelerating: Gamble One-Handed Weapons
- Replaces Brawler's.
- Bold Chieftain's: Gamble Rings
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops.
Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!- Tibault's Will:
- Replaces Undying and trades some passive healing for a power increase.
- Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty:
- Replaces Relentless Berserker's, which is moved to our Boots. This is a great item that offers us a little bit of everything in the way of offense. It is even a great defensive choice since it grants additional ranks of Aggressive Resistance.
- Tibault's Will:
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Uber Uniques, they're useful for the build.
- The Grandfather:
- Replace Limitless Rage with this, which can be removed entirely or swapped with Edgemaster’s.
- Harlequin Crest:
- Replace Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty.
- Doombringer:
- Replace Edgemaster’s.
- Ring of Starless Skies:
- Replace Bold Chieftain's.
- The Grandfather:
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
Follow the build's gearing progression from level 50 to 100, including the changes that need to be made as you obtain Legendary Aspects and Uniques.
← Scroll for More Variants →
Once you have completed the leveling guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Upon finishing the leveling process and approaching the endgame grind, many of the Aspects we use are already available to us from the Codex of Power. There is no reason we shouldn't put them to immediate use, since they can be imprinted as often as needed as we upgrade our gear. We'll start by doing the following:
Gear
Helm, Chest, Pants:
- Relentless Berserker's
- Numbing Wrath
- Disobedience
Gloves, One-Handed Weapons
- Ancestral Force
- Berserk Ripping
- Edgemaster’s
Two-Handed Weapons
- Brawler's
- Earthstriker's
Boots
- Wind Striker
Amulet
- Relentless Armsmaster
Rings
- Vocalized Empowerment
- Voracious Rage
This gives us a functional build to begin farming with. Some Fury issues might be present early on until we find the required gear to solve them, but Hammer of the Ancients generally is less demanding here in comparison to other Core Skills.
Skills
The preliminary version of our build makes a few small changes to the skill tree to compensate for our lack of gear and to help ease early game struggles. Specifically:
- Probably the most notable change is the Walking Arsenal passive. We combine this with Relentless Armsmaster to drastically reduce any Fury concerns in the early game. Our skill choices in this setup naturally make keeping this passive active fairly easy - it becomes second nature relatively quickly.
- Lunging Strike is used early on to also help mitigate Fury loss, and as the Dual-Wielding portion of Walking Arsenal.
- Charge is a secondary damage source when combined with Brawler's, and also the Two-Handed Slashing portion of Walking Arsenal.
- Leap is a traversal skill that helps keep our Fury and Berserking status up. It can be used with Dual-Wielding or Two-Handed Slashing weapons, whichever feels better. Two-Handed Swords will inherently give it Bleed application.
- Furious Impulse gives us some extra Fury recoup since we are swapping weapons frequently.
Gameplay
The early setup revolves around keeping Walking Arsenal active, but this is generally not a concern as long as you are mixing in Lunging Strike and Charge casts every so often - this is typically done naturally without much thinking involved.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear
Seek out the following aspects that aren't available in the Codex of Power:
- Undying replaces Disobedience. This should be done once we are approaching or above the Armor cap for the current level of content.
- Earthquake replaces Berserk Ripping. We are starting to lean into a "Leapquake" style of play by adding this Aspect. Note that Ground Stomp is not required to activate this as long as we are using Bul-Kathos and Leap.
- Giant Strides replaces Voracious Rage.
- Bold Chieftain's replaces Vocalized Empowerment. Only do this when Fury consumption reaches a comfortable point; this could vary depending on progression and gear.
- Limitless Rage replaces Earthstriker's.
- Accelerating replaces Brawler's.
We also add one more Aspect that is already available to us via the Codex of Power:
- Bul-Kathos replaces Relentless Armsmaster, as we are no longer using Walking Arsenal. This Aspect enables our Leap to cause Earthquakes.
Paragon Related Gear Changes:
- Damage while Berserking should start being prioritized once the Blood Rage paragon node has been activated. Until then, generic additives such as Core Skill Damage or Damage to Close Enemies are better.
- Once the full "Leapquake" setup is acquired, it may be more beneficial to to slot Rumble in place of Ire, if following along with the paragon board in this guide. This could be early or late in progression, since it will always vary between players.
Skills
- We drop Walking Arsenal in favor of Unconstrained here. This lets us focus more on spamming Hammer of the Ancients and less on switching weapons.
- Charge gets replaced with Challenging Shout for some extra damage reduction as we start getting into harder content.
- If Fury is still an issue at this stage, continue using Combat Lunging Strike as we did in early endgame. At some point this will start becoming quite useless, and should be replaced with Wrath of the Berserker when it does.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop from now on will revolved around using Leap and Hammer of the Ancients. Leap will initiate fights and cause Earthquakes, which will buff us offensively and defensively while we smash away with Hammer of the Ancients.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them.
Gear
This is the final version of our build, and a few things change at this point.
- We equip Tibault's Will and Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty, both of which drastically increase our defensive and offensive capabilities.
- The Critical Strike Chance and Maximum Fury rolls at this point try to account for the effect of Furious Hammer of the Ancients. It may need to be adjusted to ensure a 100% Critical Strike when capped or nearly capped on Fury - this depends entirely on gear rolls, so adjust accordingly.
Skills
A few skills are changed at this point:
- Wrath of the Berserker is taken at this point. In general, it's just a skill to easily fall back on when needed, whether it's just for some extra damage or some extra Fury generation / knockback when things get dicey.
- There are other options here too. Rupture is nice for capping Attack Speed and activating the second part of Decimator. Ground Stomp is great for some extra Stuns and Earthquakes. Pick whatever suits your playstyle.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop is relatively the same here - we are just way more powerful!
This variant shifts some of our damage from Hammer of the Ancients and focuses it more on Charge. The result is less bonking power in exchange for ridiculous clearing ability, ideal for speedfarming all content in the game. Rather than being a pure Hammer of the Ancients build, this is more of a hybrid that combines two very high damage skills that complement each other very nicely, making it extremely well-rounded in the process.
Gear
- Brawler's goes on our Gloves, replacing Relentless Berserker's. With our high uptime on Charge, we can rely on it completely as our source of Berserking. With our newly added Brawler's Aspect, our clear becomes quite literally explosive... even small packs get destroyed by this once they are grouped up with Charge.
- Ancestral Charge replaces Limitless Rage. This gives our Charge a massive area of effect increase and a huge chunk of damage on top of it.
- Banished Lord's Talisman is replaced with Numbing Wrath. The combination of Tibault's Will and Charge makes it so we are pretty much always overcapping on Fury, which gives us a steady supply of Fortify generation. We take Cooldown Reduction and +Ranks of All Brawling Skills here for more Charge damage and uptime.
Alternate Setup
- We can lean more into Hammer of the Ancients damage by continuing to use Banished Lord's Talisman.
- To make up for the Cooldown loss on our Amulet, we should take Bear Clan Berserker's instead of Veteran Brawler's.
- Note that this version favors bigger bonks, and will result in lower damage output from Charge.
About Ring of the Ravenous:
- This can be the Ring used alongside Unrelenting Fury in either setup and is a great choice stat-wise; it also has the added benefit of providing Bleed. However, in its current state, it has a bad interaction with Earthstriker's and will sometimes force Rend to consume Overpowers (even though we don't actually take this skill). Not the end of the world by any means, and it is less impactful if using the Banished Lord's Talisman setup. Use it "at your own risk" - but in general, it is a fine option.
Skills
- Really the only thing that changes here compared to the standard endgame variant is putting more points in Charge.
- If using the setup with Banished Lord's Talisman, Unbridled Rage is the way to go to spend Fury quicker.
Paragon
- Use the slider to see the paragon changes between each version listed above.
Gameplay Showcase
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successful in this game mode:
- Prioritize more defensive rolls on gear, such as Maximum Life on Rings or Amulet.
- Tibault's Will can always be replaced with a Defensive Aspect, such as Iron Blood.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.
Fury and Cooldown Reduction:
- As explained earlier, our Fury and Cooldown management are instrumental to our success as a Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian.
- Due to its fast attack rate, Hammer of the Ancients has a high rate of Fury consumption. In order to be able to use this skill continuously, we need to put effort into maintaining its regeneration. One main source of this early on is the Vocalized Empowerment Aspect in combination with our Shouts. To have our Shouts (and Fury generation) up as much as possible, we invest into Cooldown Reduction which is further bolstered by the Bold Chieftain's Aspect.
- Cooldown Reduction is available on Helms and Amulets.
- Resource Generation is available on Rings and Amulets.
- Fury Cost Reduction is available on Two-Handed Weapons and Amulets.
- The Two-Handed Mace Expertise inherently gives us a chance to gain Fury on hit.
Weapon Damage:
- Our Hammer of the Ancients only scales off the weapon damage per second of our Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon. This means that in all other weapon slots, the only requirement is an item level of 780 or more (to maximize ranges on the stats that can roll.) Weapon damage does not matter.
Damage while Berserking:
- One of the biggest sources of increased damage for us. Berserking acts as a 1.25x multiplier while it is active, and this damage scales even higher with the help of the Blood Rage paragon node. Because of this, we want to prioritize Berserking at all times and take Damage while Berserking anywhere that it is feasible - on gear and the Paragon Board.
- War Cry is a great way to instantly activate Berserking.
- Relentless Berserker's Aspect is important for keeping Berserking up during fights.
- Both Leap and Charge grant Berserking when combined with the Battle Fervor passive.
- Wrath of the Berserker is yet another way to activate this status.
Critical Strike Damage:
- This is no longer as needed as it once was due to it being an additive source of damage, but it's still nice to have when possible. Even though we don't prioritize them, Critical Strike Damage rolls (and any additive damage roll) on all of our weapons apply to us even if we are not using them, including the Royal Emeralds socketed within. Whenever a Critical Strike is dealt, the resulting damage is multiplied by 1.5x
- Heavy Handed is a separate multiplier to our Critical Strike Damage.
- To help our odds of dealing Critical Strikes, we take Critical Strike Chance as a priority roll on Gloves and Rings. In some variants, The Mortal Draw further increases this chance.
Critical Strike Damage:
- This is a good generic additive damage source to prioritize when possible, as it usually has higher rolls than other additives. With good endgame gear, our Critical Strike change is very high, so we tend to get slightly better mileage out of this compared to other options. It's important to note that Critical Strike Damage rolls (and any other additive damage roll) on all of our weapons apply to us even if we are not using them with out main skill.
- Whenever a Critical Strike is dealt, the resulting damage is multiplied by 1.5x
- To help our odds of dealing Critical Strikes, we take Critical Strike Chance as a priority roll on Gloves, Rings, and Amulet.
- Furious Hammer of the Ancients naturally gives the skill a higher than average base Critical Strike Chance.
Vulnerable Damage:
- This status acts as a 1.2x multiplier to our damage. We don't actively try to scale Vulnerable damage beyond this, since it acts as just another additive damage source.
- Exploit allows us to inflict Vulnerable whenever we initiate combat, and can be a main source of application. However, once its duration ends, we have to wait quite a while for its effect to activate again.
- Taking a Lucky Hit: Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable roll on one Ring is usually an efficient way to keep this debuff active once Exploit expires.
Damage from Stuns:
- Concussion allows us to inflict Stuns via Lucky Hit procs. Since we prioritize getting this passive to level 10 via Tempered affixes, every Lucky Hit is a guaranteed Stun.
- Wallop multiplies damage if enemies are Stunned or Vulnerable.
Limitless Rage and Edgemaster’s:
- These Aspects are damage multipliers that significantly increase their effectiveness when we are capped or overcapped on Fury, another reason why our resource management becomes so important.
Ancestral Force:
- An Aspect specifically made for Hammer of the Ancients. It is a damage multiplier and also provides a way to increase this skill's area of effect.
Damage Reduction:
- Challenging Shout is one of our main sources of damage reduction. We can further increase its effectiveness by rolling + Ranks of this skill on our Chest Armor.
- We take various forms of damage reduction through rolls on our gear, such as:
- Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
- Damage Reduction while Fortified
- Aggressive Resistance is a source of damage reduction while we are Berserking.
- Pit Fighter offers us a small amount of Distant Damage Reduction.
- Aspect of Might gives us a nice amount of damage reduction when we hit with Lunging Strike.
- There is a stacking damage reduction with our Shouts thanks to Guttural Yell.
Fortify:
- While we are Fortified, we gain a baseline 10% damage reduction that can be scaled even further with Royal Sapphires in our Helm, Chest Armor, and Pants.
- Numbing Wrath can be used to constantly generate Fortify.
Armor:
Another form of damage mitigation. Armor is important as it is not conditional and always in effect. It reduces all incoming Physical damage by a percentage, so a high armor value is extremely ideal.
- Our Strength stat inherently grants us Armor, with a 1:1 ratio.
- Aspect of Disobedience increases our total Armor by a percentage
- Royal Skulls can be socketed in Amulet and Rings for additional Armor, but they contend with gems that grant Resistances.
- % Total Armor rolls are taken on non-Unique Helmet, Chest Armor, and Pants.
Unstoppable:
- Enhanced Rallying Cry is our main source if prolonged Unstoppable.
- Charge grants us this effect during its attack animation.
- Wrath of the Berserker provides us Unstoppable for 5 seconds on use.
Unstoppable is our means of ignoring or escaping the many types of enemy Crowd Control effects.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities
There are many stats and status effects that generate on gear, but many are not important for your build. See below for a general breakdown as well as a per slot priority list in the list.
- Helm: Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty
- + Ranks to Aggressive Resistance ↑ ↑ ↑
- Maximum Fury
- Damage while Berserking
- % Attack Speed
- % Chance to Become More Enraged (60)
- Otherwise Look For: Concussive Strikes
- Strength ↑ ↑
- Maximum Fury
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️Imposing Presence ↑
- ⚒️Concussion (as needed) / Crowd Control Duration
- Chest Armor: Numbing Wrath
- Armor
- Maximum Life
- Fury per Second ↑
- ⚒️Imposing Presence ↑
- ⚒️Concussion ↑
- Gloves: Ancestral Force
- + Ranks to Hammer of the Ancients↑ ↑ ↑
- Critical Strike Chance
- Resistance (as needed)
- ⚒️Concussion
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies
- Pants: Tibault's Will
- Increased Damage while Unstoppable (20%)
- Maximum Resource
- Damage Reduction from Close Enemies ↑ ↑ ↑
- % Damage
- Potion Capacity
- Otherwise Look For: Undying
- Strength ↑ ↑
- Maximum Life
- Resistance / Armor (as needed)
- ⚒️Imposing Presence ↑
- ⚒️Concussion (as needed) / Crowd Control Duration
- Boots: Relentless Berserker's
- Movement Speed ↑ ↑ ↑
- + Ranks to Leap
- Maximum Life / Resistance (as needed)
- ⚒️Leap Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️Concussion / Resistance (as needed)
- Amulet: Bul-Kathos
- + Ranks to Heavy Handed ↑
- Critical Strike Chance
- Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️Imposing Presence ↑
- ⚒️Movement Speed ↑
- Ring 1: Giant Strides
- Critical Strike Chance ↑ ↑ ↑
- Resistance (as needed)
- Strength / Maximum Life
- ⚒️Resource Generation with Dual-Wielded Weapons
- ⚒️Damage while Berserking is Active
- Ring 2: Bold Chieftain's
- Critical Strike Chance ↑ ↑ ↑
- Resistance (as needed)
- Lucky Hit: Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable
- ⚒️Resource Generation with Dual-Wielded Weapons
- ⚒️Damage while Berserking is Active
- Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon: Accelerating
- High Damage Per Second
- Strength
- Attack Speed
- Critical Strike Damage / Maximum Life
- ⚒️Hammer of the Ancients ↑ ↑ ↑
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies
- Dual-Wield Weapon 1: Earthquake
- Strength
- Attack Speed
- Maximum Life / Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Earthquake Duration ↑ ↑ ↑
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies
- Dual-Wield Weapon 2 (Mace): Edgemaster's
- Strength
- Critical Strike Damage
- Maximum Life / Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Earthquake Duration ↑ ↑ ↑
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies
- Two-Handed Slashing Weapon (Sword): Limitless Rage
- Strength
- Critical Strike Damage / Maximum Life
- Resource Cost Reduction
- ⚒️Earthquake Duration ↑ ↑ ↑
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Cruelty, Iron Skin Elixir, Elixir of Fortitude, Heady Assault Elixir & Heady Precision Elixir
- Incenses: Song of the Mountain, Reddamine Buzz & Chorus of War
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
Why take Blood Rage with no source of Bleed?
Why am I running out of Fury?
How do I assign skills to the correct weapon?
Mechanics
Learn about the mechanical details which makes the build tick.
Furious Hammer of the Ancients
Summary
The HotA Barbarian is a strong melee build that controls the battlefield. It is relatively fast-paced and can deliver huge damage numbers with impressive area of effect when fully optimized. Leaping into battle with a Rallying Cry and following up with an absolutely devastating atomic smash with Hammer of the Ancients will always feel way too satisfying.
Credits
Written by snail
Contributions by Slothmaster
Reviewed by Facefoot